‘Well, then, I’ll make it clear to you,’ rang out the brisk young voice. ‘You are paid for the work you do during certain hours, and if you don’t come here punctually, or if you waste any of those hours, I shall deduct from your weekly wage the value of the lost time—I shan’t pay you, in fact, for work you don’t do!’
‘Nay, now,’ responded Job, rolling his head from side to side, and assuming a bullying air. ‘I don’t hold wi’ these here reg’lations. Us don’t want no new rules, do us, mates?’
‘Nay, that we don’t,’ came the answer in a chorus of growls.
‘Whether you want them or not, I mean to keep to them,’ returned Rosalie. ‘That will do; you can all go to work now.’
She turned, and went into the house; her heart was beating very fast, and she was rather white about the lips, but she had borne herself bravely, and no one would have guessed the difficulty she had found in nerving herself to take this stand.
She could hear the men’s voices murmuring together discontentedly, but by-and-by the sound of heavy slouching steps moving away in different directions warned her that the group had dispersed.
It being the morning for cheese-making, she presently went upstairs to change her imposing black robe for her working dress, and, chancing as she came downstairs to look out of the window, she observed that Job Hunt was standing, arms a-kimbo, by the pigsties, in close conversation with his brother. Now, Job should at that moment have been far on his way to the pasture; Abel ought to have been feeding the pigs: this was palpable defiance.
‘Deeds, not words,’ said Rosalie to herself. ‘They think I am merely threatening—I must show them I am in earnest.’
She went across the yard, note-book in hand.
‘It is now half-past five,’ she remarked. ‘You, Job, are two hours and a half late; you, Abel, an hour. I have made a note of the time. Moreover, if I find that you continue to disobey me I shall not keep you in my service.’